Tuesday, November 29, 2011

I am pretty sure Thanksgiving was fun, but it went by in such a pictureless blur! There was definitely turkey. And my brother and his cute girlfriend were there. Sadly, my sister was not. But other cousins came too and even brought their dog for Emma Jane to play with! (Seriously, this story would be so much better with pictures! Why don't we just skip to the part that I do have pictures of.)

So normally by this time, I have completely my Christmas shopping and most of my gift wrapping.

This year, I haven't even started yet.

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't panicking just a little bit.

There just seemed to be so much more time until Christmas pre-Thanksgiving!

But I spent most of that time making really cute Iron Bowl gameday outfits for my favorite little football fans!

(I even made the ugly orange and blue ones!)

The Saturday after Thanksgiving was the Iron Bowl, the epic annual showdown between football's biggest rivals, Alabama and Auburn! (I should totally be one of those female sports announcers.)

We took the kids tailgating on campus before the game. After that experience, I think John is officially a die-hard football fan!

He is a die-hard tailgate fan, anyways! As we were leaving, John said to me, "I go tailgating moo-uh (more)." I told him we would definitely try to come to another game next year. He said, "I go tailgating dis yee-uh (year)." Then he pointed to a random tent and said, "How bout dat one?" Maybe next year we will try gate-crashing.

Emma Jane preferred the cheerleading aspect of the game. She was given a small plastic megaphone from some kind stranger, and she spent most of her time yelling "Roll Tide" into it at the top of her lungs.

And Libby, my little tenderhearted pacifist, learned a life lesson in smack-talk from her good friend, Jack. It is important to have thick skin when it comes to football and rivalries. (And Jack learned the hard way that telling a girl her dress is stinky is not going to earn any brownie points!)

But ultimately, Libby and her stinky dress earned this year's bragging rights!

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So, in the (slightly rearranged) words of the previously mentioned smack-talker:

Thursday, November 10, 2011

You know those moments when your kid does something that just makes you so proud and you think to yourself, "Wow! I am really doing this parenting thing right!"

Yeah, this is not one of those moments.

Yesterday morning, Emma Jane came running up to me and said, "Mommy, look at my lips!"

Her lips looked totally normal so I said, "What's going on with your lips, honey?"

Emma Jane: "I'm wearing some of your makeup!"

Me: "Oh. You look beautiful. Mommy is going to finish her coffee now."

And then I probably patted her on the head and sent her on her merry way so that I could enjoy my crack fix coffee in peace.

One cup of coffee later, I went to my room to get dressed and Emma Jane followed me, bouncing all the way. She ran right over to my bed and picked up a small, black tube off of the floor. She held it out to me and said, "See here is the make up I used!"

I know what you are thinking: "Oh no, she didn't!"

I was thinking it too.

But, oh yes. She did!

I took the "makeup" from her, gave her another pat on the head and said, "Yeah, don't play in Mommy's makeup anymore. It spreads germs."

My hope is that by the time Emma Jane is old enough to know what that stuff is, that she will have forgotten that she once used it as lip gloss.

Monday, October 24, 2011

Cracker Country is an outdoor living history museum at the state fair grounds. When we walked through the gate we stepped back into the year 1898.

The kids had so much fun learning about life in Florida during the pioneer time period. We took a guided tour of the museum and in addition to learn lots of interesting information, the children also got to participate in some hands-on activities. They got to help make a rope, wash clothes on a washboard, learn about how a train depot operates and go shopping in the general store. Emma Jane and Libby each bought a bag of marbles and John got a wooden train toy.

They also got to make candles,

learn how to make butter,

and experience a one room school house.

Here is John hard at work "writing" his name on his slate.

All of the boys sat on one side of the room and the girls sat on the other side and when the children lined up to go outside the girls always went first!

There was a lot about the simpler life we experienced at Cracker Country that was appealing to me. There were also aspects of my modern life that I appreciate even more now.

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

One of the highlights of our day in Boston was visiting the Boston Children's Museum. It is three floors full of hands on fun specifically geared for the kiddos. And the best part, on Friday nights starting at 5:30, admission is only $1!!

The kids had so much fun!

While we were there, we ran into a couple of college students that were that were participating in a study on children and emotions. One of them asked if John could sit a play a game with them. He seemed interested, so we sat down and the college student (whose name I don't remember so we are going to call her Mary) explained the game to John.

Basically, John had a piece of paper in front of him with a black square and a white square on it. Mary showed him a little picture of a stick figure and said, "This is Mr. Stickman and when he feels happy he goes over here on this white square. But when he feels bad, he goes over here on the black square." And she showed him how to do it. Easy enough.

And John cooperated the first two times Mary asked him to show her where to put Mr. Stickman. And then he decided to shake things up a bit.

John gave a devilish little laugh and said, "Nooo. He feels too bad!" And then John put Mr. Stickman on the black square. Mary corrected him and then said, "John, now Mr. Stickman feels bad. Where does he go when he feels bad?" To which my contrary son replied, "He not so bad!" And then John placed Mr. Stickman on the white square.

John continued to do the opposite of what Mary asked, laughing all the while, for several more rounds before saying, "All done" and hopping down.

Mary smiled at me and said "He is just too smart for me! And so verbal for his age!"

I think that is research study-ese for "Your son is a total smart a55 and he just spent 5 minutes screwing with me. Thanks!"

He is quite a little turkey. But so cute!

After leaving the Museum, we took the subway back to the Prudential Center. Libby was super pumped about riding the "underground train." I think she was expecting something along the lines of Space Mountain. Needless to say, she was sorely disappointed!

A few days later, she was still reeling from her disillusionment. She said to me, "They really should call that underground train dirty, unfun, smells bad, trash cans everywhere stupid train!"

I stifled a laugh and said, "Yeah, but for short most people just call it the subway."

She thought about that for a moment and then said, "Mommy, is subway Spanish for dirty, underground train."

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Tonight at church, Libby grabbed a piece of paper and started "taking notes." Seeing as she is 6, her method of note taking was to simply write down random words and phrases she heard the pastor say. At the end of the service, her paper said:

Pastor Kens sister

feels

like a bodl (bottle)

isent (isn't) that werd (weird)

I seriously almost wet myself trying not to laugh!

Thankfully I managed not to pee my pants (which is harder than you might think after giving birth three times!) and just gave her a kiss and told her I was so proud of her for paying such close attention.

Friday, October 14, 2011

Ok so I know it has been a million years since I posted anything on this blog. And it is entirely possible (and probable) that no one other than my mother is actually even interested in what I have to say anymore. (And even she isn't really interested in what I say...she just wants pictures of the grand kids!)

But even so, I have too many cute pictures of our trip to New Hampshire not to blog about it, so Mom, this is for you!

We just returned from our annual trip to experience all things Fall in New Hampshire. We packed as much New England fun into 5 days as humanly possible, including apple picking, mountain climbing and leaf collecting. (Blog posts about all of those topics to come!)

We also drove the hour south and spent a day in my new favorite city:

BOSTON!

If you have never been to Boston, you have to add it to your bucket list! We had the most fun day there! There is something for everyone: history, culture, great food, a wonderful children's museum, and we were able to walk everywhere (which helped counter the awesome food)! I absolutely LOVE Boston! I was dreaming up ways to convince Brad that we should move to Boston, when something happened to change my mind.

You see, while I love Boston the city, Bostonians? Not so much.

Now, I don't say this to offend any readers that might be from Boston or the surrounding areas, but seriously...why are Massachusetts people (and by people I mean drivers) so angry?

There was just so, so much honking!

Like the woman who honked at me and Emma Jane as we crossed Beacon Street. (With 4 seconds left on the crosswalk timer, I might add!) I mean, did it make her feel good to give the finger to a four year old? Did having to wait that four seconds to make her turn really ruin her day so much? What exactly is the point of honking at a pedestrian already halfway across the street?

Anyways.

EJ and I were far too excited about this place to let anything get us down!

What trip to Boston would be complete without paying a visit to Mr and Mrs Mallard and Jack, Kack, Lack, Mack, Nack, Ouack, Pack and Quack!

(I could not convince the kids to get off the ducks long enough for me to take a picture of the sculpture!)

In fact John took a turn sitting on each of the ducklings. Here he is teaching Lack the ABCs.

We even discovered the "real" Mr and Mrs Mallard in the pond.

Unfortunately, there were no ducklings to be seen. Emma Jane was especially distraught by their absence. I tried to explain to her that ducklings are born in the spring and that the ducklings had simply grown up, but she just kept repeating "But they are supposed to be babies! They are babies in the book!"

I didn't even bother pointing out that the book was written 60 years ago and any actual ducks that may have served as inspiration have long since gone to duckie heaven.

John was not concerned by the missing ducklings. Her wasn't really interested in the ducks at all. He preferred chasing pigeons (which he kept calling ducks) and squirrels.

Now John is a seasoned squirrel chaser and he thinks it is really funny when they scamper up the trees away from him. He was not prepared for the somewhat tame Public Garden squirrels that are probably used to being fed by humans.

I have never seen my boy turn and run so fast as he did when that squirrel started to chase him back! (heehee!)

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

I love the concept of sensory tubs! I have seen some pretty impressive tub themes on other blogs and I often think to myself, I should make a few of those for the kids to play with. But for various reasons (laziness), I never do.

But then I saw this super cute, patriotic tub posted on one of my favorite preschool blogs and I decided that this would be a good place to start. So I scoured the dollar bins at my two favorite places Target and Walmart for Fourth-themed items to fill the bin.

Ours includes:

red and blue straws cut into small pieces (the girls helped me with the cutting)

sparkly red, white and blue pom poms

red, white and blue star confetti

red, white and blue necklaces

small buckets

star sunglasses

American flags

gel clings

and fireworks straws.

I pulled the bin out for the kids to play with on July 1st and they have LOVED it!

They have asked to play with everyday and it easily keeps them occupied for 45 minutes or more! It has been so fun seeing the games that they have come up with. Libby and Emma Jane had a race to see who could fill up a bucket with only items of one color the fastest. The prize for the winner was a firework straw!

John's favorite were the gel clings.

He especially liked clinging them to himself!

Emma Jane showed him how to stick them to the windows.

The kids had so much fun with this! I am sure this will be the first of many sensory tubs at our house!

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Before going to bed, Emma Jane requested that daddy wake her up when he got home. Which Brad did. He picked her up out of bed and rocked her for a few minutes. She said, "hi, daddy" and then her eyes rolled back in her head and all the bones in her neck seemed to turn to jello. Then we put her back to bed.

Around 3am Emma Jane burst into our room in a complete snit because no one had woken her up to welcome home daddy. I just let her sleep with us the rest of the night rather than try to argue with her.

When we all finally woke up for the day, the children gave Brad his Father's Day gifts.

Before he opened it, I had no idea what was in the blue bag. Libby wrapped it herself. Inside was a frame she made at church, a card she drew, and a permanent marker she swiped off my desk! She is such a funny kid!

Emma Jane made Brad a trophy. I thought this turned out so cute! She did the painting and I helped her glue it together.

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Libby also made a couch coaster too. It is just an unfinished picture frame which Libby painted and decorated. Then we glued wooden balls (the ones with flat edges, sold as doll heads) to the bottom and added a picture. It fits over the arm of the couch and is a perfect spot for daddy's coffee cup in the morning!﻿

We made Brad a special dinner which he, unfortunately, wasn't able to enjoy since his stomach still isn't right after the traveling to India and all!

But we are just so thankful to have him back! It was a wonderful day-after Father's Day!

About Me

I am married to the love of my life, Brad, and am a homeschooling mama to our four children, Libby, Emma Jane, John and Jami. I am so blessed by the family God has given me. My life is never the same two days in a row! It is totally chaotic, sometimes frustrating, full of laughter and I wouldn't trade it for anything!